There are somewhere between a half-dozen and 10 discount bus lines coming out of South Station in Boston nowadays, and apparently they sometimes help each other out. Kind of.

Today a line of people were waiting for the 10 a.m. Megabus bus to New York City. At 10:05, when the bus hadn’t shown up yet, a guy from a competing company, Dattco, came over to say he doesn’t work for Megabus, but that they ask him to help load people on the bus, so he does. He said the Megabus dispatcher said the bus was five to 10 minutes away. Then he went on:

“You want honesty? I’m a guy who believes in total honesty. I’ll tell it to you straight. The thing is, every Friday this happens, I have to come over and tell you guys the 10 o’clock bus is going to be late. But you want to know something? The bus isn’t coming from New York or anything. The driver parks it 15 minutes away at a hotel. I don’t know if it’s oversleeping, or what, but there is no reason he’s a half-hour late or more every Friday.”

The guy went on the explain — he was clearly one of those who really likes talking and being considered the authority — that he doesn’t work for Megabus and he doesn’t care, and he if he were us, he wouldn’t complain to the driver because “you don’t want and angry guy driving you for the next four hours,” but that this doesn’t happen for the buses that leave Boston from 11 a.m. on, because those buses actually come from New York City and turn around and go back. It’s just the drivers that leave earlier, who get up and drive to South Station from somewhere nearby, that are late.

“So what did we learn today, girls and boys?” he yelled to everyone. The guy was really obnoxious, but entertaining and better than stressing about the late bus. “Don’t ever take the 10 o’clock Friday Megabus bus to New York City.”